


Ridden

by taichara



Category: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:34:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8175113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: It's easy to stand proud in the sunlight.  At night, hero tales have different morals.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _prompt:_ "what's done in the dark"

_...!_

Seliph snapped awake all at once, a gasp that was more than half a scream strangling in his throat. The rough bedding -- and his cloak -- flew away in a tumbled heap as he, lunging upright and still with dream assailants dancing in his vision, lashed out with enough force to nearly tumble the cot over altogether. As it was, the thing struck one of the tent-posts and, smothering a different sort of cry, he rushed to grab it before some catastrophe hit ...

... or, worse, that someone noticed he was awake. Lana, or Oifey, or -- well, anyone, really. He was not supposed to be awake in the dead of night, a good day's march away from their next target, the next mark on the battered maps circled in crimson ink like fresh-spilled blood ... 

The post was steady, the canvas was still. Seliph dared a deeply drawn sigh of relief and eeled from the cot just long enough to retrieve the bedclothes; the cold was already biting at him wherever his skin was bare to the night's chill air. Swiftly he huddled back under the wool, staring out into the shadows of the tent's interior.

_I need to rest ..._

_I know I will not. Not after that dream._

It wasn't the first time the hag had plagued him, and he doubted it would be the last. Oifey, Shanan -- Lewyn -- they all said the same, in different ways: that he would free the Empire's suffering people. That he was destined to do so. That he would bring down Loptyr himself.

That he was the rightful emperor, the so-called "Child of Light".

_But I -- shouldn't that be Julia? Naga ..._

Against the night's chill, his own Brand seemed to burn like the wound it was called after, echoing his thoughts and the shreds of lingering nightmare. He could not escape the fate burned into his blood, no matter how much he might, when deep down in night's black jaws, wish it otherwise. And wish that he could, sometimes, when he was alone at night and the blackness whispered to him that he could fail, that he led his friends and loved ones on nothing but a madman's quest to ruin and worse ...

Because the dream reminded him, as it always did, that there could still and forever be a second option; a different outcome, for one with blood Branded with Baldr's mark:

Though the nights be cold, Seliph's dreams were raging fire.


End file.
